Color printers utilizing various technologies have become quite common. Many such color printers connect to, and are controlled by computer systems, and provide the capability to print color documents from the computer system. Software known as a driver controls the printing of such documents by sending commands and data to a printer. Typically, a separate driver is provided for each type of printer connected to a computer system, although some drivers have the capability of controlling more than one type of printer.
Many printer drivers provide the capability for a user to set a number of parameters that control aspects of the printing process and features of the printed document. For example, parameters such as print quality and color balance are relatively common. So that the user can visualize the effect of various settings, many printer drivers attempt to display an impressionistic mimic of the user's print choices. The goal is to imply to the user the relative differences between various selections. Typically, each driver for each type of printer is hardcoded with mimics for each combination of settings that are specific to that type of printer. This requires each printer driver to be modified for each type of printer and also requires relatively large amounts of memory to store the predefined mimics.
A need arises for a technique by which mimics that illustrate the various combinations of printer settings may be generated quickly and efficiently, so that mimics for each combination of settings do not have to be included in each printer driver.